My second TiVo was the first model they produced capable of recording and capturing full 1080p video. It could store up to 30 or 40 hours worth, if memory serves, with a large-for-the-time 250gb hard drive. They’ve gone and topped that, if only very slightly:
The TiVo Mega, slated to ship early next year, will pack 24TB of hard disk space—eight times the storage on the TiVo Roamio Pro, the current top-of-the-line model. Put another way, that’s enough to stash more than three year’s worth of standard-definition television on one DVR.
That’s a little too late for recording that just-completed Simpsons marathon of every episode ever, but what can you do?
The cost of all this storage? The Mega’s exact price hasn’t been announced, but TiVo officials put the price tag around $5000. The super-sized DVR is expected to ship in the first half of 2015.
TiVo says it will store about 4,000 hours of HD video.
I put together a 6TB Drobo with an EyeTV unit plugged into a spare Mac to act as my DVR for significantly less. Still, it’s more work to maintain than TiVo, and I miss those green and red Thumbs-Up/Thumbs-Down buttons on that iconic and lovely TiVo remote control.
There’s a market for this product. It’s niche, but that niche will crave the Mega.
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